BuzzFeed workers slam company as it goes public on Nasdaq

Max Zahn
·Reporter
Mon, December 6, 2021
Digital media company BuzzFeed (BZFD) went public on Monday after a SPAC merger that valued the firm at $1.5 billion, setting it apart from peers like Vox and Vice that remain private.

But some employees aren’t celebrating. The milestone comes days after dozens of workers at the outlet’s news division, which won a Pulitzer Prize this year, walked off the job in protest of a move they say enriches executives while the company refuses a union contract that would raise salaries for employees and bolster worker protections.

BuzzFeed strongly contests that characterization, saying the move to go public will benefit management and workers alike, and that the company is eager to reach a deal with the unionized workers.

The clash marks a flashpoint of worker unrest in the digital media sector, a rare source of union growth in recent years that could draw heightened attention as online outlets begin turning to public markets.

“We are the reason they have a product to take public,” says Addy Baird, a BuzzFeed reporter and chair of the BuzzFeedNews Union, which formed in 2019 and has been bargaining with the company for a contract since that year. “We can’t wait anymore.”

All 61 members of the BuzzFeedNews Union walked off the job last Thursday, the same day the company’s shareholders voted in favor of the plan to take the company public, Baird said. The issues of primary concern for union employees include salary increases, the ability to perform freelance work and post content outside BuzzFeed channels, and the use of traffic metrics in employee evaluations. The union also accused BuzzFeed of needlessly delaying negotiations.

Speaking to Yahoo Finance, the company noted that the union represents a small portion of the roughly 1,100 employees who work at BuzzFeed. As part of the SPAC merger, the company acquired the sports and entertainment publishing company Complex for $300 million, expanding the staff to 1,400, BuzzFeed said.

Contract negotiations were set aside for several months at the outset of the pandemic by emergency talks between management and employees over how to adapt the workplace, BuzzFeed said. The next round of negotiations will take place on Tuesday.

“There’s a bargaining session planned for tomorrow where we look forward to making more progress with the union,” a company spokesperson told Yahoo Finance in a statement. “Today, the company is celebrating an incredible milestone: becoming the first publicly traded digital media company, with Complex Networks in our ranks, and equity for more deals ahead. We couldn’t be more excited about everything that lies ahead for BuzzFeed and its employees.”

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - DECEMBER 06: BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti stands in front of the Nasdaq market site in Times Square as the company goes public through a merger with a special-purpose acquisition company on December 06, 2021 in New York City. Shares of the digital media company, trading under the new ticker “BZFD,” rose 12.7% to $10.84 as markets opened Monday. 

(Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

In its latest proposal, BuzzFeed offered workers a $50,000 salary floor and a guarantee of 1% annual raises, Baird said, deriding the terms as below industry standards. In a public statement about the walkout last week, the union highlighted the challenge of living on such a salary in high-cost cities like New York and San Francisco, where some BuzzFeed offices are located.

"It's incredibly frustrating for us," Baird says. "We're for starters asking them to move on their pay minimums. Engage in the process; stop slow-walking it."

BuzzFeed says it has offered an average overall wage increase of 2.5% across the membership of the union, but that individual annual raises would range from 1% upward depending on merit.

BuzzFeed is expecting $521 million in revenue in 2021, including income generated by Complex Systems.

The company expects to raise $16 million dollars from the SPAC deal, after investors pulled 94% of the $287.5 million raised by the SPAC, an updated filing showed last week. The stock price fell slightly in early trading on Monday and was down over 7% as of 2:30 p.m. EST.

The company and the union have reached tentative agreements on a host of non-economic proposals, including remote work as well as health and safety measures, BuzzFeed said.

The BuzzFeedNews Union belongs to the NewsGuild, which represents workers at many publications, including Reuters, Business Insider, and The New Yorker. The workers at BuzzFeedNews are willing to carry out additional protests if the two sides cannot reach an agreement, Baird said.

"We’re clearly able to mobilize quickly and effectively, and will continue to do so until we have a fair, strong contract that we’re ready to ratify," Baird says. "As far as the immediate future, our next big thing is getting to the bargaining table."

Max Zahn is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. Find him on twitter @MaxZahn_.

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BuzzFeed shares fall in debut after investor withdrawals rock SPAC merger

Mon, December 6, 2021



Jonah Peretti, founder and CEO of BuzzFeed, poses with employees to celebrate the company's debut outside the Nasdaq Market in Times Square in New YorkMore

(Reuters) -Shares of BuzzFeed Inc plunged as much as 17% in their Nasdaq debut on Monday, after its merger with a blank-check company was hit by a flurry of investor withdrawals last week.

New York-based BuzzFeed's stock opened up 14% at $10.95 but reversed course to trade as low as $8. At 1:10 p.m. ET, the shares were down 5% at $9.10.

The company was one of the 10 trending stocks on Stocktwits.com, a platform commonly seen as a measure of interest from retail investors.

After shareholders redeemed a majority of their stake, BuzzFeed said last week it would receive only 6%, or nearly $16 million, of proceeds from the trust account of the blank-check company 890 Fifth Avenue Partners Inc, named after the fictional Avengers mansion.

Special purpose acquisition companies typically sell shares at $10 apiece, put the cash in a trust account and then search for a company to buy. Its shareholders can choose to redeem their shares in return for cash.

Tightening scrutiny from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and saturated demand have weighed on the SPAC market, which soared in popularity last year.

BuzzFeed's deal is a barometer of investor interest for peers like Vox Media, which is reportedly considering a SPAC merger. Magnum Opus Acquisition Ltd, the SPAC merging with Forbes, has been trading below its issue price of $10.

BuzzFeed also secured $150 million through a convertible note financing.

The company, which produces news, videos and online quizzes, was founded in 2006 by Jonah Peretti and John Johnson, and saw a rise in popularity among the youth.

In 2016, the company was valued at $1.7 billion after Comcast Corp-owned NBC Universal's investment.

BuzzFeed bought news website HuffPost last year and also acquired youth entertainment company Complex Networks in June this year.

(Reporting by Mehnaz Yasmin in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel)

BuzzFeed Tumbles in Turbulent Debut for Digital Media

Gerry Smith
Mon, December 6, 2021,



(Bloomberg) -- BuzzFeed Inc. shares fell in their first day of trading, a sign investors are wary of the digital media company after a shaky lead-up to its public debut.

The stock, which trades on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol BZFD, was down 12% at 11:15 a.m. in New York, after surging earlier in the day. Shares of the blank-check company that BuzzFeed merged with to go public had closed at $9.62 on Friday.

BuzzFeed’s debut as a public company marks a major milestone for the online media company that Jonah Peretti co-founded 15 years ago. It’s also a sign of how other digital media companies could perform on the public market. Among today’s crop of large online publishers, BuzzFeed is the first to have its shares trade.

“The big thing digital media needs for consolidation is a strong public company and we wanted to be the first,” Peretti said in an interview.

BuzzFeed’s journey to the public markets got off to a tough start, however. The company planned to raise $288 million in cash through its merger with a blank-check company, 890 5th Avenue Partners Inc. Instead, most of that business’s investors opted not to participate in the transaction, an option available to participants in special purpose acquisition companies like 890 5th Avenue.

That had left Peretti with just $16 million of the originally intended funds as the company readied its debut.

Peretti said he expected investors would pull their money out because the market for SPACs has cooled. It “won’t meaningfully change our strategy,” he said, noting that BuzzFeed will still have money raised from a $150 million convertible note that’s part of the transaction. As a public company, BuzzFeed can also use its stock as a currency to buy other businesses, he said.

BuzzFeed’s arrival as a public company will lead to management changes. The company is in talks to name Michael Del Nin as its new president, Peretti said. Del Nin was formerly co-chief executive officer of Central European Media Enterprises Ltd., one of Europe’s largest television broadcasters, and an executive at Time Warner Inc., now known as WarnerMedia. He would report to Peretti.

Track Record

Del Nin has a track record leading an exchange-listed company that Peretti doesn’t have.

“I’m an entrepreneur,” Peretti said. “I don’t have public market experience so we’re adding that to the team as part of this transaction.”

Investors have poured more than $190 billion into SPACs since last year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. While they are seen as being a fast way to go public, they often underperform traditional initial public offerings.

Peretti said BuzzFeed likely would have done an IPO if the pandemic hadn’t disrupted its business. He called the SPAC “a means to an end.”

BuzzFeed’s big moment has also been soured by a labor dispute. On Thursday, BuzzFeed News employees walked off the job to protest what they say is the company’s failure to agree to a fair labor contract.

“It’s a negotiation and it’s hard and there’s disagreement around points,” Peretti said of the walkout. “The bargaining table is where they wanted to have those conversations, so that’s where we’re having them.”

As part of going public, BuzzFeed also acquired youth-focused media company Complex Networks from Hearst Corp. and Verizon Communications Inc. Last year, BuzzFeed bought HuffPost.

Peretti described BuzzFeed and Complex as complementary businesses, with Complex stronger in male-focused topics like sneakers and streetwear.

Third Quarter

Last month, BuzzFeed said its third-quarter revenue grew 20%, helped by an improvement in ad sales. But it also saw a slowdown in sales of goods, citing supply chain issues, and it expects that to continue in the fourth quarter. BuzzFeed sells, among other things, a line of cookware at Walmart named after its food brand Tasty. The business is seen as a way for BuzzFeed to rely less on advertising.

BuzzFeed’s multiple revenue lines allow it to adapt when one area of its businesses slows, according to Peretti.

“The most important thing is we have a resilient, diverse business that can manage through changes in the marketplace,” he said.

Peretti co-founded BuzzFeed in 2006. From the start, the company had a unique ability to create posts that took off on the internet, like “What Colors Are This Dress?” and making a watermelon explode on live video using rubber bands. But it also has gone through its share of struggles, including multiple rounds of layoffs over the years, partly because tech giants have dominated the online ad landscape.

Peretti predicted the company would be making more acquisitions as a public company, including, potentially, subscription-based publishers.

“This gives us this new platform to do a lot of things that were impossible to do before as a private company,” he said. “It’s an exciting moment for us.”

(Updates with share trading beginning in first paragraph. A previous version corrected the description of Nasdaq ceremony.)

WW3.0

Satellite images show the buildup of Russian forces near Ukraine that have the US and NATO worried about an invasion

PUTIN WILL USE DEFENCE OF RUSSIANS TO JUSTIFY INVASION, AS HAPPENED IN GEORGIA AND CRIMEA

LAVAROV BITCHED TO BLINKEN ABOUT RUSSIAN PUPPET YANACOVICH AND THE 2014 MADAN REVOLT, THATS HOW FAR BACK THEY WANT TO GO

Ryan Pickrell
Mon, December 6, 2021

Overview of ground forces and equipment in Yelnya, Russia

Satellite image ©2021 Maxar Technologies

New satellite images of the buildup of Russian forces near Ukraine's borders have come out.

The troop buildup has raised concerns that Russia may invade its neighbor as soon as early next year.

The Biden administration has warned of "severe consequences" if Russia takes military action.

New satellite photos show the buildup of Russian armed forces at strategic locations in western Russia near the Ukrainian border and at one spot in Crimea amid concerns that Russia will invade its neighbor in the near future.

The images, which Insider obtained from Maxar Technologies, show a number of Russian tactical battle groups, including both personnel and equipment, such as tanks, artillery, and armored troop carriers, deployed to the Pogonovo training area and Yelnya in Russia and Novoozernoye in Crimea in November.

Overview of ground forces and equipment in Yelnya, RussiaSatellite image ©2021 Maxar Technologies

After snap drills in the spring near Ukraine triggered a few alarms, tensions de-escalated for a time. But alarm bells began ringing again when a significant number of Russian troops were observed gathering a couple hundred miles from Ukraine's border early last month.

Amid a flurry of reports on the Russian troop buildup, State Department and Pentagon officials publicly characterized Russian activity as "unusual" and expressed some concern over Russia's lack of transparency about the reasons for the troop increase.

Troop tents in Yelnya, Russia

Satellite image ©2021 Maxar Technologies

Toward the end of November, Bloomberg reported that the US had shared concerns about the possibility of an invasion, as well as intelligence indicating that Russia is positioning forces for a possible multi-directional push into Ukraine, with allies and partners in Europe.

"I would not downplay this," Jeffrey Edmonds, a former CIA military analyst and Russia expert at CNA, told Insider at the time. "The troop buildup is pretty significant."

"I think you always have to assume it's a real possibility," Jim Townsend, a former Pentagon and NATO official and security expert at the Center for New American Security, said.

And in a podcast discussion last month, Michael Kofman, the Research Program Director for the Russia Studies Program at CNA, said he doesn't "think there is going to be a Russian military operation in the coming days and weeks," but added that he is "very worried looking into the coming months and toward this winter."

View of Russian forces deployed to Novoozernoye

Satellite image ©2021 Maxar Technologies

Biden administration officials revealed late last week that US intelligence indicates Russia could invade early next year with a force as large as 175,000 troops, according to multiple reports.

A Russian battle group is visible in the Pogonovo training area

Satellite image ©2021 Maxar Technologies

One official said that "the Russian plans call for a military offensive against Ukraine as soon as early 2022 with a scale of forces twice what we saw this past spring during Russia's rapid military buildup near Ukraine's borders."

"The plans involve extensive movement of 100 battalion tactical groups with an estimated 175,000 personnel, along with armor, artillery, and equipment," the administration official said, further explaining that the US estimates "half of these units are already near Ukraine's border."

A second Russian battle group can be seen in the Pogonovo training area

Satellite image ©2021 Maxar Technologies

Though Russia has denied having plans to invade, the buildup comes as Russia has expressed frustration with what he considers to be a lack of respect for Russia's "red lines," NATO activity, Ukraine's pro-Western leanings, and political obstacles in Ukraine running contrary to Russian interests.

"I don't accept anybody's red lines," President Joe Biden told reporters Friday, adding that the US would probably need to have a lengthy discussion with Putin about Russian activities. The White House announced over the weekend the two leaders will talk Tuesday.

As for whether or not Russia will actually move to invade its neighbor, "we don't know whether President Putin has made the decision to invade," Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said last week. But, the secretary added, "we do know that he is putting in place the capacity to do so in short order should he so decide."

"So despite uncertainty about intention, and timing, we must prepare for all contingencies while working to see to it that Russia reverses course," he said, warning in remarks at a NATO event of "severe consequences" should Russia invade.

Last Friday, Biden said that he was putting together what he believes to be "the most comprehensive and meaningful set of initiatives to make it very, very difficult for Mr. Putin to go ahead and do what people are worried he may do."

AND LETS NOT FORGET BELARUS ON THE UKRAINIAN BORDER, LUKESHENKO THREATENING THE UKRAINE ON BEHALF OF THE RUSSIANS. ARE HIS MILITARY AND RUSSIAN VISITING TROOPS ALSO ON THE BORDER OF UKRAINE, WHILE HE PLUGS THE POLISH (EU/NATO) BORDER WITH REFUGEES.

Ukraine: America Dropped the Ball on Russia’s Invasion Threat


Anna Nemtsova
Mon, December 6, 2021,

ANATOLII STEPANOV/AFP via Getty Images

After U.S. intelligence revealed that Russia may be preparing for a full-on invasion of Ukraine, Ukraine’s Minister of Defense Oleksiy Reznikov told The Daily Beast in an exclusive interview that the 7-year-long military conflict is even more dangerous today than it was in April of this year, when Moscow deployed up to 150,000 troops along the Ukrainian border.

“The West did not react in time,” the minister said on Monday, adding that it’s now clear that the Kremlin has been plotting an offensive on Ukraine for months. “Russia has de facto annexed Belarus, which adds more than 1,000 km along the border that we have to defend.”

Russia’s Cold War With Ukraine Is About To Heat Up

Up until now, Belarusian ruler Alexander Lukashenko has tried to maintain a somewhat neutral position on the Russo-Ukrainian conflict. Just a few months ago, Lukashenko claimed he would recognize Crimea as Russian territory only “when the last Russian oligarch delivers goods” to the peninsula, referring to the Russian elite’s reluctance to invest in Crimea for fear of getting sanctioned. But now, with Lukashenko fuming over Western sanctions and reliant on the Kremlin’s support, “Minsk is serving as Moscow’s proxy and is used for actions that Russia cannot do with its own hands,” Reznikov told The Daily Beast.

On Saturday, Ukrainians woke up to a flurry of chilling headlines after The Washington Post reported that Russia may be gearing up to attack Ukraine in a matter of months, based on information gathered from a U.S. intelligence analysis. The plan reportedly involves the deployment of over 175,000 Russian troops. All the while, Russian officials have reportedly been pressuring the U.S. into guaranteeing that Ukraine will be blocked from joining NATO.

In other words, the message to America and its allies is clear: Mind your own business, and stay out of it.

According to Reznikov, it gets worse. Not only are there more Russian soldiers on the border than there were in April, but the fact that Ukraine, Poland, and three other Baltic states are now “surrounded” with Russia’s Nord Stream 2 pipelines presents its own fresh set of challenges to Ukraine’s resistance efforts.

“The direct gas pipeline to Germany sharply increases military threats to the four NATO states and also to Ukraine. Russia now has the potential to destabilize [their gas supplies] and in doing so, block a strong reaction from Europe,” the minister said. “We saw what that can look like: the Kremlin carried out a hybrid attack on Poland and Lithuania with the help of migrants,” he added, referring to the recent border crisis at the Poland-Belarus border.

The minister warned that in the case of a Russian invasion, millions of Ukrainian refugees would flood the European Union. “The sudden appearance of 3-5 million refugees from Ukraine would be just one of many serious problems that the European society would have to deal with,” he said.

“We are already dealing with several wars at the same time: a political conflict between President Zelensky and oligarch [Rinat] Akhmetov, economic crises and a COVID-19 pandemic,” editor-in-chief of Ukrainskaya Pravda, Sevgil Musaieva told The Daily Beast on Monday. “A war would be a disaster, but we hope that Moscow is just crying wolf again to put pressure on the West.”

Reznikov expressed concerns that the flow of migrants coming from Belarus could also be redirected from the Polish border to its border with Ukraine, where Ukrainian military forces have been preparing to defend a 1,500-mile-long stretch of land for weeks.

Putin and Biden are expected to speak in a video conference summit on Tuesday, but it’s already clear that Moscow does not expect any miracle peace deal between the two presidents. “It's very difficult to expect any breakthroughs from any conversations. We have such huge Augean stables in our bilateral relations now that it is hardly possible to clear them out like this in a few hours of conversation,” the Kremlin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday.

Ukrainian analysts are struggling to assess the legitimacy of Moscow’s invasion plans. “Things look much worse than in April. Since the summer we’ve been reading about Russia recruiting more soldiers online, building field hospitals, kitchens for the war time, and of course about Russian-Ukrainian joint troops,” Ivan Yakovyna, a Kyiv-based analyst at Novoye Vremya magazine, told The Daily Beast on Monday.

A popular television presenter, Yevgeny Kisilev, believes that the current threat of war is real. “There has been a shift in Russian power towards the war hawks. They have won the parliamentary elections, so they want to fight now,” Kisilev, who reports for the Ukraine-24 TV network, told The Daily Beast.

At this point, Reznikov does not believe that any kind of diplomatic agreement will keep Moscow at bay.

“Ukraine already signed the Budapest Memorandum once and gave away the world's third-biggest nuclear arsenal in exchange for what we considered ‘guarantees.’ After some time, one of the guarantor countries, the Russian Federation, violated all agreements and attacked us, occupying part of our territories. Tens of thousands of our people have already died. We don't really believe in any paper deals," he told The Daily Beast.

Putin Ushers in New Cold War Era by Severing Russia’s NATO Link

The minister went on: “The guarantee would be the West’s practical steps towards strengthening Ukraine's defense capability and our army. So that the price of a possible escalation would become unacceptable for the Kremlin’s military plans, and also, a clear preventive signal to Russia that the escalation of the war would destroy Russia economically. Only such an approach would be a guarantee.”

The stark contrast between the positions of Washington and Moscow was laid bare last week when U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that Washington would “impose severe costs and consequences” in response to any Russian escalation. Lavrov responded by saying that NATO was “playing with fire.”

“The situation is dangerous,” pro-Kremlin analyst Yuriy Krupnov told The Daily Beast. “Since the absolute mistrust between Russia and the West makes the future completely uncertain.”

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Exclusive: oil companies’ profits soared to $174bn this year as US gas prices rose



Oliver Milman

THE GUARDIAN
Mon, December 6, 2021

The largest oil and gas companies made a combined $174bn in profits in the first nine months of the year as gasoline prices climbed in the US, according to a new report.

The bumper profit totals, provided exclusively to the Guardian, show that in the third quarter of 2021 alone, 24 top oil and gas companies made more than $74bn in net income. From January to September, the net income of the group, which includes Exxon, Chevron, Shell and BP, was $174bn.

Related: Biden to release 50m barrels of oil in effort to bring down rising US gas prices


Exxon alone posted a net income of $6.75bn in the third quarter, its highest profit since 2017, and has seen its revenue jump by 60% on the same period last year. The company credited the rising cost of oil for bolstering these profits, as did BP, which made $3.3bn in third-quarter profit. “Rising commodity prices certainly helped,” Bernard Looney, chief executive of BP, told investors at the latest earnings report.

Gasoline prices have hit a seven-year high in the US due to the rising cost of oil, with Americans now paying about $3.40 for a gallon of fuel compared with around $2.10 a year ago.

The Biden administration has warned the price hikes are hurting low-income people, even as it attempts to implement a climate agenda that would see America move away from fossil fuels, and has released 50m barrels of oil from the national strategic reserve to help dampen costs.

But oil and gas companies have shown little willingness so far to ramp up production to help reduce costs and the new report, by the government watchdog group Accountable.US, accuses them of “taking advantage of bloated prices, fleecing American families along the way” amid ongoing fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Americans looking for someone to blame for the pain they experience at the pump need look no further than the wealthy oil and gas company executives who choose to line their own pockets rather than lower gas prices with the billions of dollars in profit big oil rakes in month after month,” said Kyle Herrig, president of Accountable.US.

The analysis of major oil companies’ financials shows that 11 of the group gave payouts to shareholders worth more than $36.5bn collectively this year, while a dozen bought back $8bn-worth of stock. This apparent focus, rather than on further drilling, has caused some frustration within the federal government, with Jennifer Granholm, the US energy secretary, stating that “the oil and gas companies are not flipping the switch as quickly as the demand requires.”

A glut of new oil drilling has made the US awash with oil in recent years, turning the country into a top-level exporter as well as domestic supplier, but this has kept prices low to the displeasure of investors. “A lot of this has been driven by investor sentiment,” said Helima Croft, head of global commodity strategy at RBC Capital Markets, of the current reluctance to expand production. “They don’t want them to spoil the party.”

The situation has left the White House in an awkward position with its commitments to rapidly reduce planet-heating emissions, with environmentalists furious at administration attempts to expand drilling and fossil fuel companies also unhappy over some of its earlier climate-related moves, such as shutting down the controversial Keystone XL pipeline.

The oil and gas industry has fought Joe Biden’s attempts to pause new drilling permits on federal land, despite its unwillingness to expand operations in order to reap the returns of costlier oil and the fact the industry currently sits on 14m acres of already leased land that isn’t being used, an area about double the size of Massachusetts.

“It’s not the government that is banning them from drilling more,” Pavel Molchanov, an analyst at Raymond James, told CNN. “It’s pressure from their shareholders.”

Aside from its role in the current high gasoline prices, the oil and gas industry is a leading driver of the climate crisis, the reality of which it sought to conceal from the public for decades, and is a key instigator of the air pollution that kills nearly 9 million a year, a death toll three times that of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.

The American Petroleum Institute, a leading industry lobby group, pointed to a blog that blamed the Biden administration for policies that “significantly weaken the incentives to invest in America’s energy future” but did not answer questions on production rates of oil companies.

MEXICO

World's Most Indebted Oil Company to Sell up to $1 Billion in Bonds

Amy Stillman and Nacha Cattan
Mon, December 6, 2021, 



(Bloomberg) -- Petroleos Mexicanos will sell between $700 million and $1 billion in dollar-denominated bonds as part of a government effort to shore up the state oil giant’s finances, Deputy Finance Minister Gabriel Yorio said in an interview.

The issuance is part of a government rescue plan announced earlier Monday that includes a $3.5 billion cash injection, which the producer will use to pay down obligations and embark on a series of bond buybacks. The overall deal will result in Pemex’s net debt falling by about $3.5 billion, Yorio said by telephone.

Pemex, the world’s most indebted oil company, plans to sell new debt now to take advantage of relatively low global interest rates, Yorio said. Signs that the U.S. Federal Reserve could start an accelerated tapering of asset purchases may end up raising borrowing costs.

The debt sale will focus on cost efficiency for the company, Yorio said.

Read More: Mexico Gives $3.5 Billion Lifeline to Pemex to Help Finances

In addition to the transaction, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador ordered Pemex to reformulate its five-year business plan, implement financial mechanisms to allow for public sector co-investment in exploration and production projects, and make changes to its management team. Last week, Pemex announced that its former chief financial officer Alberto Velazquez Garcia will be replaced by Antonio Lopez Velarde, its risk management chief. Velazquez will head up a new unit.

Holders of Pemex bonds coming due in 2024 to 2030 will receive cash and new notes in an exchange offer, while investors with securities maturing after 2044 will be paid cash for their holdings, according to a statement from Pemex on Monday.

Lopez Obrador has been criticized by investors for allocating more resources to Pemex’s unprofitable refineries, instead of focusing on its core job of drilling. Industry members are skeptical of the new strategy to develop shallow-water and onshore fields instead of more complex, yet more promising, deep-water reservoirs to boost dwindling reserves.

Mexico Gives $3.5 Billion Lifeline to Pemex to Help Finances

Amy Stillman
Mon, December 6, 2021


(Bloomberg) -- Petroleos Mexicanos, the world’s most indebted oil company, will get a $3.5 billion cash injection from the government as President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador orders a new business plan for the struggling company.

The state-owned producer will use the funds to pay down obligations and also embark on a series of bond buybacks and new issuance to reduce the cost to service its debt. As part of the initiative, Pemex will also overhaul its five-year business plan, according to a statement released by the company Monday.

Lopez Obrador’s latest effort to show support for Pemex, which has a 90-year legacy in the country and for many years provided a huge chunk of the federal budget, comes after more than a decade of declines in output and limited investment in new fields. While the announcement appeared to provide some short-term support for the embattled company, analysts are skeptical that it will be enough to revive operations.

“It seems to be a continuation of what they have been doing: a direct transfer from the Mexican government, and trying to change the debt from the short and medium to the longer term,” said Alejandra Leon, Latin America upstream director at IHS Markit. “The critical part is whether there are changes in the operation that generate sufficient resources to deal with the debt, and that’s still unknown.”

Leon said she couldn’t be sure that the transactions announced today will ultimately reduce Pemex’s debtload, because the details on the plans to buy back some notes and issue new bonds were unclear.

Still investors seemed to be encouraged, with Pemex’s benchmark bonds due in 2031 rising 1.2 cent to 96.5 cents on the dollar, reducing its yield to 6.4%.

The liability management transaction won’t include bonds coming due in 2022 and 2023 since the government has already vowed to cover them, according to the statement. Pemex chief executive officer Octavio Romero had revealed that pledge in October. The government also previously announced plans to reduce the company’s profit sharing duty to 40% next year.

Lopez Obrador and Finance Minister Rogelio Ramirez de la O have promised to do whatever it takes to prop up the oil giant, with the president even saying that its bonds are equivalent to sovereign debt. Lopez Obrador, widely known as AMLO, has made Pemex the focus of his strategy to revive the Mexican economy by trying to make it self-sufficient in gasoline, and he’s rolled back the liberalizing energy reforms of his predecessor to give Pemex a bigger role in the domestic market.

Bond Exchange

Holders of Pemex bonds coming due in 2024 to 2030 will receive cash and new notes in an exchange offer while investors with securities maturing after 2044 will be paid cash for their holdings, according to the statement.

In addition to the transaction, Pemex will reformulate its five-year business plan “to include detailed actions necessary to strengthen its financial position in the medium and long term, as well as to prepare Pemex for the challenges the energy sector will face in the following years,” the statement said.

Also, it will implement financial mechanisms that will allow for public sector co-investment in exploration and production projects, improvements in its debt structure, and changes to Pemex’s management team. Last week, in Pemex’s first C-suite shift in the past three years, the Mexican producer named risk management chief Antonio Lopez Velarde its chief financial officer, replacing Alberto Velazquez Garcia.

AMLO’s energy policies have been criticized by investors for allocating more resources to Pemex’s unprofitable refining business and reducing crude exports in order to send oil to its refineries instead. International credit ratings companies such as Fitch Ratings and Moody’s Corp. have downgraded Pemex’s bonds to junk in recent years, in part because they say it has no clear strategy to reverse production declines.

“There is no meaningful evidence that the ship has been righting, that any of the underlying issues that plague Pemex have been resolved,” said John Padilla, managing director at energy consultancy IPD Latin America. “What I would say is that administration after administration have almost singularly focused on the financial aspects and I think what we are seeing is that the financial aspects are one of the least of its worries.”

(Updates throughout with analyst comments and information from Pemex statement.)

University of Hong Kong researchers develop COVID killing steel

Kalila Sangster
Tue, December 7, 2021

The metal was developed to combat virus transmission via surface touching in public areas. 

Photo: Ben Stansall/AFP via Getty

A team at the University of Hong Kong have developed the first anti-pathogen stainless steel that kills infectious viruses, including COVID-19, on its surface.

The high copper content of the new metal means that it "exhibits significant antiviral properties," according to the researchers.

The new metal can reduce 99.75% of viable COVID-19 on its surface within three hours, and 99.99% within six hours, with no trace of the virus present after 24 hours, the scientists found.

The metal also kills the H1N1 influenza A virus — the virus strain behind swine flu — and E. coli bacteria.

The team launched the project as a response to evidence that large virus-laden droplets and direct or indirect contact with touching surfaces contaminated by respiratory secretions can be critical paths for COVID-19 to be transmitted from person to person, posing a high risk of virus transmission via surface touching in public areas.

Stainless steel is used extensively in public areas such as hospitals, schools, and public transport for surfaces which are frequently touched, such as lift buttons, doorknobs, and handrails, because of its excellent mechanical properties, corrosion resistance, and workability.

However, the researchers found that traditional stainless steel does not have antibacterial or antiviral properties. On the contrary, the COVID-19 virus shows "strong stability" on the surface of conventional stainless steel, with infectious virus detected even after two days, according to the University of Hong Kong.

Researchers found that infectious pathogenic viruses and bacterias could still be detected on the surface of traditional stainless steel after typical cleaning procedures such as wiping with water and liquid soap.

The scientists discovered that pure copper exhibits an excellent antiviral efficiency towards COVID-19 and other viruses. But, replacing stainless steel products with pure copper in public areas is impractical due to its high cost, low strength, and lower corrosion-resistant capability.

However, an alloy of stainless steel with 20% weight copper proved to be extremely effective.

Stainless steel is a corrosion-resistant mix of iron, chromium and, in some cases, nickel and other metals. It is also classified as a “green material" as it is infinitely recyclable.

The scientists also tested pure silver and an alloy of stainless steel with silver, as the metal is renowned for its antibacterial properties. However, silver and stainless steel containing silver did not prove to be effective in killing COVID-19.

The team has been liaising with industrial partners to create prototypes of public stainless steel products such as lift buttons, doorknobs, and handrails for further tests and trials, according to the University of Hong Kong.

Watch: UK government secures 114 million more vaccine

UK’s Kabul evacuation effort risked Afghan lives: Whistleblower

A tiny fraction of Afghans who needed help received support and some were left to die at the Taliban’s hands, civil service staffer says.

People gather at the entrance gate of Hamid Karzai International Airport a day after US troops withdrew, in Kabul, Afghanistan on August 31, 2021 [Reuters]

Published On 7 Dec 2021

Just five per cent of Afghan nationals who applied for help to flee the country under one UK scheme after the Taliban swept to power received help – with some left behind having been killed since the collapse of Kabul, a whistleblower has claimed.

In evidence published by the Foreign Affairs Select Committee on Tuesday, Raphael Marshall – who worked for the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) during the evacuation effort – told how at one point he was the only person monitoring an inbox where pleas for help were directed.

The government’s public statements over hopes the Taliban had changed did not tally with the information he was receiving.

Marshall’s written evidence is due to be published by the committee on Tuesday, and its chairman, Conservative MP Tom Tugendhat, said the “failures betrayed our friends and allies and squandered decades of British and NATO effort.”

He said it painted the evacuation as “one of lack of interest, and bureaucracy over humanity.”

Marshall worked in the Afghan Special Cases team, which handled the cases of Afghans who were at risk because of their links with the UK, but who did not work directly for the UK government.

He estimated that “between 75,000 and 150,000 people (including dependants) applied for evacuation” to the team under the leave outside the rules (LOTR) category.

He estimated that “fewer than 5 percent of these people have received any assistance” and states that “it is clear that some of those left behind have since been murdered by the Taliban.”

He said that no member of the team working on these cases had “studied Afghanistan, worked on Afghanistan previously, or had a detailed knowledge of Afghanistan.”

Marshall added that junior officials were “scared by being asked to make hundreds of life and death decisions about which they knew nothing.”

His remarks come as officials from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and the ambassador to Afghanistan, Laurie Bristow, are due to give evidence to the committee on Tuesday.

Marshall alleged that then-Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab “did not fully understand the situation.”

Emails were opened but no action was taken, as Raab felt “the purpose of this system was to allow the prime minister and the-then foreign secretary to inform MPs that there were no unread emails,” Marshall charged.

He said: “These emails were desperate and urgent. I was struck by many titles including phrases such as ‘please save my children’.”

“The contrast between Her Majesty’s Government’s statements about a changed Taliban and the large number of highly credible allegations of very grave human rights abuses HMG has received by email is striking,” he added.

Tugendhat said: “These allegations are serious and go to the heart of the failures of leadership around the Afghan disaster, which we have seen throughout this inquiry.”

“This evidence raises serious questions about the leadership of the Foreign Office, and I look forward to putting these to officials, including former Afghanistan Ambassador Sir Laurie Bristow.”

A government spokesperson pointed out that “UK government staff worked tirelessly to evacuate more than 15,000 people from Afghanistan within a fortnight.”

“This was the biggest mission of its kind in generations and the second-largest evacuation carried out by any country. We are still working to help others leave.”

Raab, now deputy prime minister, told the BBC broadcaster: “It’s inaccurate in certain respects, the suggestion that junior desk officers were making decisions is just not correct.

“There’s a difference between processing and deciding, so I’m afraid I don’t accept that characterisation.”

Black Students Stage Protests and Walkouts In Response to Racism and Bullying In Schools


Vanessa De Luca
Sun, December 5, 2021


In a recently released report issued by the Government Accountability Office, it is noted that about 1.3 million students, ages 12 to 18, were bullied for their race, religion, national origin, disability, gender, or sexual orientation in the 2018-2019 school year. In the same school year, the report says, there were 1.6 million students who were subjected to hate speech due to their identity.

Black students in particular are most often victims of this type of harassment, especially in some midwestern cities where the Black student populations are smallest.

“It’s everywhere, it’s not a new thing. This isn’t something that is just now happening. It’s just now getting attention, more than it has (gotten) before,” shares Sean Sorkoram, a high school student in Tigard, Oregon. According to CNN, Sorkoram was part of a walk out staged by Tigard High School students this past Wednesday in protest of a widely circulated video of students using racial slurs posted to Instagram. This posting of this video comes after an October report released by the Tigard-Tualatin School District which stated that hate speech incidents were on the rise.

“Students are reporting that they have been the victim of hate speech or observed firsthand hate incidents happening in our buildings,” Superintendent Sue Rieke-Smith wrote in a letter issued to parents.

While the debate over critical race theory teachings rage on in school board meetings across the country, some students are taking matters of racial discrimination and harassment into their own hands.

In Savage, Minnesota, 14 year old Prior Lake High School student, Nya Sigin was the target of a recent video also shared to social media, where another young girl can be seen spewing hate towards Sigin, and encouraging her to take her own life.

“I really couldn’t comprehend what I was listening to, it was really just a wave of different emotions,” Sigin shared with CNN reporters. “I was angry, I was disgusted, I was sad, I was confused,” she continued, adding that she’s known the girl in the video since elementary school — “basically, my entire life.”

The 14 year old is now turning her newfound passion in fighting racial attacks like the one she experienced, into protest. She recently spoke at a rally at her school addressing the incident.

Chioma Osuoha, a student activist in the region who led a solidarity event with Sigin and other students who have been victims of racial incidents, told CNN that her “heart dropped” and she was “so angry” upon watching the video.

“The power is in the people, we must do things in numbers and (I) believe that’s exactly what happened,” Osuoha, 18, said.

What must be noted is the effects of bullying on the mental health of adults and children alike. In November, the suicide of a ten year old Utah girl, Isabella “Izzy” Tichenor caused an uproar, as the child’s parents cited severe bullying as the reason she took her own life.

Another recent report published by the American Academy of Pediatrics reveals that young adults who experience discrimination about their bodies, race, age or sex have a greater risk of dealing with mental health problems than those who do not.

Psychologist Charity Brown Griffin stated to CNN, “If you have to frequent a place every day where you feel like you don’t belong, that you’re left out and where you don’t don’t feel safe, that is certainly going to take a toll on your mental health.”

“Black students and other students of color are still able to thrive, they’re still able to perform well because they have these buffers — but that doesn’t mean that the systemic issues do not exist,” she said. “The cultural assets have created opportunity for them to rise above and be resilient in spite of.”

Call of Duty: Warzone developers stage walkout over Activision layoffs



Stephen Totilo
Mon, December 6, 2021

Organizers say more than 60 workers at the Call of Duty: Warzone studio Raven Software, owned by Activision Blizzard, walked out today, demanding the reinstatement of a dozen workers from the testing department.

Why it matters: Walkouts, long a maneuver of organized labor, are becoming a tactic in the non-unionized U.S. video game sector.

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Workers from another wing of the company, Blizzard, walked out in July to protest years of alleged abuse at the studio.

The details: On Friday, management began informing a dozen contractors in Raven's quality assurance department their contracts would not be renewed past January.

An Activision Blizzard worker group say the testing team had been told that positive changes were coming to the department and noted some of the dozen had just relocated to Wisconsin, where Raven is based.

The protesting workers are demanding that all testers are offered full-time jobs.

"The end goal of this walk out is to ensure the continued growth of Raven as a studio and to foster a positive community for everyone who works there," the worker group A Better ABK said in a statement.

What they're saying: Activision says the cuts are part of a plan to convert 500 other temporary workers to full-time employees.

"Unfortunately, as part of this change, we also have notified 20 temporary workers across studios that their contracts would not be extended," an Activision rep told Axios.


They have not commented on the protesting workers' demands.

Between the lines: Raven is the lead studio behind Warzone, a popular battle royale game that industry analyst firm Super Data estimates generates over $5 million in revenue a day.

Tesco facing pre-Christmas strikes in Northern Ireland and England

Action is in protest over the supermarket group's offer of a 4% pay rise

The Belfast and Antrim workers will be taking all-out strike action from December 16.

TUE, 07 DEC, 2021 - 09:02

Workers at several Tesco distribution centres across the UK are set to strike in the run-up to Christmas, potentially hitting product availability, the Unite union said.

It said warehouse and truck drivers based at depots in Belfast and Antrim in Northern Ireland, Didcot in southern England and Doncaster in northern England were taking strike action in protest over the supermarket group's offer of a 4% pay rise.

The Belfast and Antrim workers will be taking all-out strike action from December 16. Didcot and Doncaster workers will strike for 48 hours from the same day and for five days from December 20.

Tesco, Britain's biggest retailer, said it had made a fair pay offer.

"We welcome the decision by our colleagues at the sites who have voted against industrial action. We are disappointed that some have voted to proceed, and we have contingency plans in place to help mitigate any impacts," said a Tesco spokesperson.

British retailers are already grappling with delays in international supply chains that are being compounded by labour shortages in domestic transport and warehousing networks, with a lack of heavy goods vehicle (HGV) drivers particularly acute.

But Tesco said in October it was coping well.

Reuters

Oil CEOs clash with U.S. Energy Dept official over energy transition



World Petroleum Congress in Houston

Mon, December 6, 2021, 11:10 PM
By Marianna Parraga and Erwin Seba

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Top energy executives this week urged a more cautious transition of energy policy away from oil and gas, but a U.S. Energy Department official said the industry has a moral obligation to address climate change and the economic opportunity it represents.

Executives from Saudi Aramco, Exxon Mobil and Chevron, speaking at the World Petroleum Congress in Houston on Monday, blamed demand for renewables and lack of investment in fossil fuels for recent fuel shortages and price volatility.

The conference was marked by withdrawals of top energy ministers over travel restrictions and concerns over the Coronavirus. The verbal skirmish occurred at a time when oil demand has recovered sharply from a collapse during the coronavirus pandemic even as world governments have stressed the urgency of addressing climate change.

"The volatility in commodity prices and the impact on business and people," said Equinor ASA Chief Executive Anders Opedal, "illustrates the risks we face in an imbalanced transition."

U.S. deputy Energy secretary David Turk pushed back against the industry position, saying addressing climate cannot be put on the back burner.

"There is not an alternative to stepping up and fixing the threat to climate change," he said to an audience in a largely empty hall.

Consumers in Asia and Europe have been dealing with shortages of natural gas, coal and power due to production declines that pushed prices to multi-year highs. In the United States, the Biden administration has criticized oil and gas companies, saying they put profits over consumers.

The tension between investing in oil and gas, carbon reduction technologies and responding to investors demanding higher returns will be a continuing issue for major oil firms, executives said.

"The future of energy is lower carbon from exploration discoveries and production," said Liz Schwarze, vice president of global exploration at Chevron.

Amin Nasser, CEO of Saudi Aramco, the world's largest oil producer, said there are too many incorrect assumptions made about the pace at which consumers will shift to renewables from oil and gas.

People "assume that the right transition strategy is in place. It’s not," said Nasser. "Energy security, economic development and affordability are clearly not receiving enough attention."

(Reporting by Marianna Parraga, Erwin Seba, Liz Hampton and Sabrina Valle in Houston; Editing by David Gregorio)